Modern electronic equipment, such as televisions, radios, cell phones, and computers are generally constructed of solid state devices. Solid state devices include transistors, capacitors, resistors and the like. One type of transistor is a metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistor (MOSFET), such as NMOS, PMOS, or CMOS transistors. MOSFETs may be used in a myriad of electronic devices.
Increasingly, MOSFETs are made smaller to reduce the size and increase performance of electronic equipment. In addition, use of the devices in, for example, high performance logic requires faster operational speed. One way to achieve faster operational speed is to reduce the series resistance of the source, drain, and gate regions. This has been accomplished using metal silicide as a contact material. Titanium silicide, and then cobalt silicide, has been used in CMOS technology. Recently, nickel silicide seems to be the silicide of choice. However, because of the diffusion characteristics of nickel, problems may arise during the silicidation process, such as pipe defects.